1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cargo handling systems intended for use in loading materials from a dock into the cargo hold of a ship, truck or railcar.
2. Background Art
There have been many devices and methods used in loading cargo into the holds of deep water vessels and other haulage vehicles. Conveyor belts and pipes are used for particulate and fluid matter. Loads consisting of larger discrete objects are often handled by means of a cargo net or by means of large portable containers. The handling of a collection of discrete cargo units has presented a particular problem because of the expensive and time-consuming manual labor required for loading and unloading the various transport apparatus used for conveying a bulk of such cargo units between a dock and a ship, for example. Another disadvantage of prior art methods and apparatus for handling discrete cargo units is the necessity for leaving bulky, space-wasting wooden pallets beneath a load during transit. Such lost space can usually only be conserved by manually transferring cargo from the pallet into the transport vehicle.
Cargo delivered between a ship and a dock by means of prior art devices generally requires the intervention of a team of stevedores at both the dock and ship stations. The stevedores in the cargo hold of the ship must manually remove discrete cargo units from the cargo net or similar loading device and reassemble these units on a pallet for transport to a remote section of the hold. In the process of stacking the cargo units at their assigned location in the hold, the cargo units typically are handled individually or remain on the space consuming pallet.
There have also been many prior art methods of loading cargo on to trucks and railcars. Discrete cargo units are normally loaded into a truck in serial fashion, unless a pallet remains under the load. Serial loading also requires a great deal of time and labor. There has long been a need in the cargo handling art for a device that could be used to place an entire load made up of a plurality of discrete units within a truck or other conveyance at one time and in one simple maneuver. There has also been a need for a loading article that allows placement of a load directly on the floor of a transport vehicle without retention of a pallet with the load.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide improved apparatus useful for loading discrete cargo units on to a ship,truck or other vehicle so that the vehicle is filled to capacity in a series of one or more simple maneuvers.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a more expeditious cargo handling process by means of which the number of stevedores in a ship's hold is reduced to one forklift operator, for example.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a suitable means for handling a plurality of discrete cargo units of irregular shape and to provide a convenient means for removing transport straps from around an aggregated group of cargo units.